Winchester Model 1904 serial number — why there isn’t one
The Winchester Model 1904 is a single-shot, bolt-action .22 rimfire rifle produced from 1904 to 1931, intended as an affordable adult-sized rifle.
- Produced:
- 1904–1931
- Action:
- bolt-action
The Model 1904 has no serial number
Winchester never numbered the Model 1904. Like its other low-priced single-shot .22s and utility shotguns, it left the factory with a model or caliber marking and patent dates on the barrel, but no serial. Federal law did not require serial numbers on rifles and shotguns until the Gun Control Act took effect in December 1968, and by then the Model 1904 had been out of production for years. A Model 1904 with no number is exactly as it left New Haven. Nothing has been removed.
The references put the total at about 303,000 to 306,000.
The Model 1904 is the Model 1902 action on a 21-inch barrel with a larger stock, sold as an affordable adult-sized rifle. Like the 1902, the bolt is cocked by hand.
There is no record to search and no factory letter to order. The Cody Firearms Museum, which issues Winchester factory letters, works from the factory’s serial-number records, and it cannot document a gun that never had a number.
If your Model 1904 has a number on it
Numbers do turn up on these guns. Most were added after the gun left the factory: an owner’s identification number, a hardware store’s stock number, or an importer’s marking on a gun that traveled abroad and came back. Some are factory marks that are not serials, such as inspector or fitter stamps and, on several models, a two-digit year stamp hidden under the barrel. Patent dates on the barrel are mistaken for a serial number too. None of these can be looked up in any record.
How to date a Model 1904 without a serial number
Winchester changed the Model 1904 over its run, and the published references date some of those changes. Together they bracket when a particular gun was made:
- A barrel marked for .22 Short and Long only predates 1914, when .22 Extra Long was added.
- The marking changed from “Model 1904” to “Model 04” in spring 1919. A “Model 1904” barrel means before that change, not necessarily before the calendar year 1919.
- The crescent steel buttplate was dropped in May 1925 for a hard-rubber one.
- Stainless-steel barrels, marked as such, were introduced in September 1926 and are rare.
- A November 1927 factory change replaced .22 Extra Long with .22 Long Rifle and renamed the rifle Model 04A. Rifles marked 04A date from late 1927 to 1931.
Feature dating gives a window of years, not a date. Parts were used up across changeovers, so a gun can show an older feature later than the reference year.